Let Them Be Curious: 13 Year Old Shares His Ideas on Science Education

Note: This article originally appeared in Science Connection, a newsletter produced by the Kentucky Department of Education.

Since his toddler years, my oldest son (now age 13) has shown an interest in physical science, especially anything having to do with energy. From his earliest years, science books, gadgets, circuitry, and anything solar powered has fascinated him. He even spends spare time watching YouTube clips about science and Mythbusters. Now, before you get a mental picture of educators’ son (My husband is an educator, too) who’s just a nerd, let me tell you that this child is an average teen interested in video games and computers like most other teens his age. The other trait Ethan has in common with average kids his age is a curious mind interested in exploring and learning. What’s exciting to me about the Next Generation Science Standards is the push for greater exploration of scientific concepts and the opportunity for students to ask more questions. Since the goal will be for students to ask the questions rather than for teachers to create a lab experiment with step-by-step instructions, I recently asked Ethan about NGSS Standard PS3.C. His curious nature took hold as he explained to me how he would teach this standard if he were the teacher. Below is a portion of our conversation.

Ethan: An active teen

RB: Ethan, I’m looking at the Next Generation Science Standards being implemented in schools around the country, including Kentucky, and I’m looking specifically at a standard for middle school that says “when two objects interact, each one exerts a force on the other, and these forces can transfer energy between them.” What do you think?

Ethan: yeah, what about it?

RB: If you had to teach that standard to kids, how would you do it?

Ethan: Well, there are several ways you could do it. You could use magnets, or plastic combs or balloons, but you should really let kids explore and see what might happen before you tell them anything.

RB: What do you mean?

Ethan: So, take the plastic comb idea. I would gather the students around a sink, give them all plastic combs and tell them to make the water bend.

RB: What if they don’t know what to do?

Ethan: That’s okay. They’ll figure it out probably if you give them a chance.

RB: But how would I give them a chance and still teach them anything? What if they just stand there?

Ethan: Mom, these are middle schoolers standing near a sink, they’re not going to just stand there. They’re curious and they will want to play around.

RB: ok. But what if they don’t figure it out?

Ethan: Well, after you wait a bit, you might have to start giving them hints.

RB: What kind of hints?

Ethan: Well, you could ask them questions or get them to ask you questions.

RB: What kind of questions?

Ethan: More than likely, the students will start asking questions and trying things out. They might ask—what will happen if I put this water under water? What will happen if I run the comb through my hair and then put it in water? If they don’t ask those questions or try out those things you might ask them how they think they could make static electricity with the comb.

RB: So, more than likely they will have some experience with combs and their hair having static electricity, right?

Ethan: yeah, then you could start explaining stuff to them like electrical charge happens when objects are rubbed together, so you will have charge when you run the comb through your hair.

RB: Tell me more.

Ethan: Negatively charged particles move from your hair to the comb. This makes the comb negatively charged. Electrons repel other electrons. If the negatively charged comb (from rubbing it in your hair) is near the water, it repels the electrons in the water. The water near the comb has a positive charge. The attraction between the positive charge and the negative charge bends the water.

RB: So how do you know this? Is this an experiment you did at school?

Ethan: No, I tried it in the bathroom sink one time. Plus I watched a YouTube video about it. It works the same way with strong magnets. But really, mom, you should try it and read about it too.

And, there you have it, a science lesson from my 13 year old son, and I would guess most science teachers already know this experiment, so the purpose of our sharing was not so much to tell you a cool experiment kids might enjoy. Instead, the purpose of our sharing this exchange and idea with you is to help you see just how curious kids are on their own, if we let them be. We don't have to provide step-by-step instructions for doing the experiment, and it seems the NGSS don't want us to do that anyway.

Some sites Ethan suggests for learning about bending water (just make sure you don’t provide kids the step-by-step instructions).

http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/bendwater.php

http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/homeexpts/BENDWATER.html

Sunday Salon: What I Read Online September 1-7

Homework practices

In this post Jason Bodnar talks about three types of homework and which one to avoid.

As a parent and an educator, I related well to this post by Donalyn Miller where she argues for more meaningful assignments and reading practices in language arts classes.

A Quebec elementary school is giving its students a year off from homework.

Teaching and Learning

Ashley Hurley, one of my Achieve EQuIP colleagues blogged about the ABCs of giving feedback to peers when they design lessons when she blogged for The Teaching Channel.

I, too, had the opportunity to blog for The Teaching Channel. It was a fabulous experience and opportunity to share ideas about how to calibrate on a rubric.

This excellent blog post by the National Paideia Center argues for more doing and less lecturing in our classrooms. I'm a huge advocate for the Paideia approach and like to use it in my class with pre-service students just as I did in my high school classroom previously. 

Lillie Marshall writes about effective uses for social media in teaching.

Sherri McPherson shares digital tools for providing feedback on student writing.

Sandy Merz deconstructs a teacher leadership cliche. My favorite line from this post is "like most clichés, this one intends to stop thought rather than deepen it. To deepen thought one needs to probe challenging views rather than dismiss them."

Science and Math

Patrick Goff reflects honestly in this post about questioning and modeling in his middle school classroom.

Both Patrick and Tricia Shelton are leading science educators in Kentucky, and they are involved in national conversations about the new Next Generation Science Standards. In this post, Tricia encourages others to blog about their NGSS implementation and learning.

I appreciate this math 101 reading list for life-long learners, and I added a few titles to my to-read shelf in Goodreads.

Kelly Stidham shares innovative tools for implementing new math standards.

 Other topics of importance to me

Walking! Since I still can't walk, and my body and mind are begging for it, I enjoyed reading this article "Walking Helps Us Think" and dreaming about a day coming soon when I'll be able to walk normally again.

 With sadness, I continue to watch the events happening in the Middle East. This post by Sarah Shroud offers thoughtful commentary.

Don't resist looking at these 52 Powerful Photos of Women Who Changed History Forever

How My Son Taught Me to Appreciate STEM

Lucky me.  13 years ago today I became a mom, and this parenting journey couldn't be any better.  From an early age, my oldest son has had an interest in STEM fields, and through him, I discovered that I have a great appreciation for science, technology, engineering, and math.  From my own perspective, art was already appreciated, and I enjoyed sharing art appreciation with Ethan. Together we appreciate not just STEM but STE(A)M (A--art).

Earlier this year, I read an Atlantic article by Jessica Lahey in which she shares how her dad taught her to appreciate STEAM, especially the design and creativity aspects needed to implement scientific and mathematical concepts.  Since reading this article, I began thinking about what I have learned to appreciate. I realized that I started to appreciate the STEM parts of STEAM about the same time I became a mom.

As a baby, Ethan's interest began with all things in nature...worms, caterpillars, trees, flowers, the ocean, the mountains, the stars.  He taught me to look and to listen when I carried him on my back as we hiked trails in the mountains of North Carolina, and he taught me to stop and observe the

greatness of our universe when he was walking on his own.  As he grew older we moved on to thinking more about how things work and move. We built with Lego blocks, looked through telescopes, rode trains, made energy from fruit, assembled circuit boards, made homemade bubbles and play dough, read books about everything science and tested a variety of energy sources.  Always, art was an essential part of our exploration as well.  We drew, painted, and created things for holiday gifts.

Since learning to count around age two and a half, it was apparent that numbers made sense to him.  Ethan didn't just count, he understood from an early age what numbers mean.  Mathematics became an area of strength for him,  and for some reason, he understands and makes sense of mathematical problems that I don't even contemplate (but I do appreciate!).

Around second grade an increased interest in all things solar powered took hold, and we soldered solar panels together, attended E-day at the University of Kentucky, and worked on a science fair projects for school.  In third grade he researched Thomas Edison and built a cardboard monograph for his biography presentation. Edison was his favorite because of his fascination with electricity, and for Halloween one year he even dressed as Edison, his favorite scientist and inventor.  His fourth grade science fair project investigated solar power versus battery power for toy train lights.

Toward the end of elementary school, a stronger interest in computers and video games developed, and everything Ethan knew about science, design, and art fed directly into his interest in technology.  Like many other children his age, Minecraft is a popular pastime.  With this video game, he's able to use all of his design creativity along with mathematical concepts and technology know-how. His next big plan is to build a computer, and he said this will be a father-son project.  I guess my role as mom and explorer is changing as my son grows and matures.  Even with these changes I will forever be grateful to this boy who has taught me to appreciate all things STEM because this is not an appreciation I expect to lose, only one I expect to continue developing.

Kentucky Educators Collaborating with Colorado Educators to Implement Common Core

After an amazing week in Colorado, I can honestly say I'm completely grateful for my job and the opportunities I have to work with educators in Kentucky and across the country.  Each morning last week as I drove to the beautiful Thompson School District Training facility, I drove toward the Rocky Mountains and past a beautiful lake.  The scenery wasn't the only amazing aspect of the week, I worked with excellent educators who all desire the same thing for all students--an equitable opportunity to learn and grow.

This meeting was exceptional because after one face-to-face workshop last summer and a full semester of virtual collaboration on the creation of a unit, teachers were again face-to-face to create new units for the spring semester.  They are creating common units around common content standards, but not scripted step-by step standardized units.  Each teacher contributes to the lessons and makes appropriate adjustments to meet the needs of individual learners in each class.  Teachers are encouraged to think beyond multiple choice tests and toward performance based assessments that will measure deeper learning.   Importantly, teachers lead the unit design and make decisions about the units; their work is facilitated by content experts from Stanford's Center for Assessment Learning and Equity. 

The groups begin by creating Enduring Understandings as learned in our work over the years with Understanding by Design.  These guiding questions serve as a driving force for the the unit of study.  The focus on larger concepts, principles, and ideas keeps us away from a focus on discrete skills alone and helps us consider ideas that will be more engaging to students.  For example, the high school English Language Arts group is looking at the impact of social media on language, and the high school science group is thinking about how humans affect biodiversity. 

Within these larger units of study Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) modules are embedded.  LDC offers an instructional ladder (with mini tasks developed by teachers) designed to help students attain and surpass the demands of the Common Core literacy standards in each subject area.  Effective implementation is vital with both LDC and larger units for teaching the Common Core State Standards.   That's why our Common Assignment Study is exciting.  We have selected top notch teachers who know how to meet the needs of their students and who are always seeking to grow as learners and professionals.

As a former teacher, I know I would have enjoyed an experience like this, so to be there in a support and leadership capacity, was interesting and invigorating in a new way.  I collaborated as a leader because leaders also have to be willing to work together to create the systems and structures we need in schools, districts, and states to support the work of teachers and the learning of students.

Students Need Opportunities to Learn More than What's on the Test



Note--Arts & Humanties = 5 day rotation--1 day music, 1 day visual art
1 day P.E., 1 day library, 1 day writing

What do you notice about this fourth grade schedule?  Does it look like a schedule similar to that of your children and/or students?  Hopefully not, but I suspect it might.   We live in a school district that promotes the teaching only of subjects which are tested in a particular grade level.  This means my nine year old son who loves history has received little to no social studies formal instruction in his public school.  This is not the fault of the teachers—it’s the fault of a system which prioritizes subjects included in high-stakes testing.   At the elementary level social studies is tested only in fifth grade, so schools adjust what they teach and ignore social studies until that one year.  It doesn’t get much better when it comes to science; students around here only have official science instruction during fourth grade (again, the year it is tested).   My sixth grade son loves science, but he was offered science instruction only one year of his six years in elementary school.  I won’t even start on how limited the opportunities for technology and the arts are as well.  You see, these are the unintended consequences of state and federal mandates for high standardized test scores. 

If I were a pessimist, I might end my post here and tell you I’ve decided to remove my son from public school in search of a better alternative for a more well-rounded education.  However, I am an idealist and a dreamer who has a vision—a vision that we can collaborate to make a difference in the schools in our communities.  In fact, this vision or a similar vision is being enacted in a school district only about forty five minutes away from where we live.  In Danville, Kentucky, leaders of the schools and teachers are implementing project based learning as one way to meet the needs of students beyond what’s on the state standardized tests.  Kudos to this district!  I’m ready to move forward with creating more opportunities like this in my own district as well.  All students deserve the opportunity to learn more than what’s on the state test. 

Tower of books at Ford's Theatre
museum in Washington D.C.

In the mean time my husband and I supplement what our children learn at school with learning at home.  We encourage our children to be responsible and tech savvy citizens; we read content rich non-fiction as well as fiction and poetry.  We also take local and out of state trips (when possible) to promote active learning through experiences.  I feel fortuante that we can work to provide these experiences to our children, so when wearing my mom hat I feel fine about this supplemental approach to education.  However, when wearing my educator hat, I realize not all children have this same luxury of parents who are able or willing to supplement what they learn at school with more well-rounded experiences at home. 

 

 A few changes to our current system could provide more well-rounded learning experiences for all students, and that is my mission and my vision--to support educators striving to provide experiences for all students.  Please share your ideas and suggestions with me. 

Drawn to Science

Shhh… Let me share a secret with you—one I don’t announce loudly, often, or really at all in my regular work with certified science teachers.

When I started teaching in the fall of 1998, I spent one semester in a tiny private school as a 5^th-8^th grade English and science teacher.  Those kids were so young compared to the high school students I taught during student teaching, and I was inexperienced and worried about how I could possibly teach science, since I was only certified to teach English.  I learned alongside my students.  We hiked, collected leaves, and conducted rudimentary experiments without a lab.  At the end of the semester I was offered a high school English teaching position and promptly left the tiny school and my young students, but not before realizing what mattered to me most was teaching.  While I longed to read and discuss literature with high school students, I was even more interested in seeing students have aha! moments, no matter the topic. 

Since that semester I have been driven to learning more about science, and it’s been very nourishing. I read science blogs, articles, books, and I help my sons with various science projects.  A scientist would probably tell me reading about science doesn’t really compare to doing science, so that’s why I tend to keep my semester of teaching science a secret. 

At age 8, my oldest son begged us to buy him a solar panel kit. 
As it turned out, we had to solder tiny panels together,
so I learned more than I ever anticipated with this fun adventure--thanks to Ethan.

 Not to be kept a secret is this growing list of science blogs I read.

Oliver Sacks, M.D. I’ve been reading books by Oliver Sacks since 1994 when an English professor in college knew I was interested in the study of human behavior and the mind.  This professor handed me the book—The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and my long time reading interest in the works of Oliver Sacks began.  How cool is that?—an English professor didn’t try to convince me to only read what interested him—he handed me a book he knew might interest me.

Endless Forms Most Beautiful   Several of the blogs I read now have come to me via Twitter, including this one by Kimberly Moynahan.  Last fall I wrote a post about a moth we saw while at a professional development training.  Shortly thereafter, Kimberly was following me on Twitter, so I don’t know if she saw my blog or not, but I’ve been reading her blog since then.  Endless Forms Most Beautiful is captivating with beautiful and interesting photographs and great information for someone like me who keeps trying to learn about the world in which I live.  Another note--Kimberly started a list of all the bloggers in Canada, so check out this document for an ongoing list.

Scijourner The Kentucky Writing Project director told me about this blog when I saw her at the Kentucky Council for Teachers of English Annual Conference.  This blog is written by teens—a great example of science writing we might use in our classrooms.

Erin C. McKiernan  I have a hidden interest in neuroscience and found this blog through random google searches I was conducting because of stories I follow about individuals with long term brain damage.  This site has been up only a few months, but already I enjoy the postings on a regular basis.

Patrick Goff A blog about teaching middle school science.  I enjoy learning about science and the teaching of science from an National Board Certified Teacher who's inspiring and dedicated.

Tricia Shelton A blog by a high school science teacher who I met via Twitter. She's kept me motivated to dig deeper into instructional design for science as she leads work around the Next Generation Science Standards.

Feel free to share additional science resources and blogs you think will help me continue learning.

Introducing Principals to the Literacy Design Collaborative

This week I had my first opportunity to meet all the middle and high school principals in our district.  As the primary point of contact for a major literacy grant, it was important for these administrators to know who I am, and more importantly, to know about the ongoing professional learning experiences we are facilitating for their teachers.  Since we believe in modeling best practice, my colleagues and I decided to stage an argument about the content the principals would learn (In this situation, the content happened to be writing instruction and impact of writing programs in schools).  The argument was designed to set the context and engage the learners/readers in two articles with opposing view-points.  

I’m really happy to be back in the district working closely with teachers and schools, and for the most part it’s going well.  However, I do have one little issue.  My colleague and I don’t agree on the appropriate approach for writing instruction, so we need your help.  We are going to give you two different articles and ask you to help us decide an answer to this question—is it necessary to omit personal connection to produce good writing?  I don’t think it’s necessary to do so, but my colleague does.  Will you help us settle this argument by gleaning evidence from two texts?

My science colleague distributed The Writing Revolution, and I distributed In Defense of Freedom Writers but only after I talked about the power Manuel Scott’s presentation had on me a couple of weeks ago.   Then we gave each administrator a few text dependent questions to accompany both articles, set a timer for 20 minutes and then paced, re-read and watched as a room full of principals and associate principals read the two articles with their pens in hand.  Following the reading of the two articles, our social studies colleague continued the staged argument by telling the principals she didn’t agree with either of us—she was in the middle.  She then facilitated a fish bowl discussion to engage the principals in conversation around the two points of view conveyed in the two articles.  She charted ideas and the principals on the outside of the fishbowl recorded additional thoughts on sticky notes when it wasn’t their turn to talk.  A few struggled to keep quiet when they were on the outside of the fish bowl because they felt so strongly about what they had read.

These are the same conditions teachers are creating as they introduce a Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) task to students in science, social studies and English Language Arts.   Before we went into the rest of our presentation on LDC, we told the principals the argument had been staged, and they got it.  They understood we had set the context for learning more about the content.  Teachers in our district, across many districts in Kentucky, and in several other states in the United States are utilizing the LDC tools to implement the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical subjects.

We are using LDC because we see the importance of engaging students in meaningful and authentic reading and writing opportunities in every discipline.  Think about the response above--A few struggled to keep quiet when they were on the outside of the fish bowl because they felt so strongly about what they had read.   Exactly.  Imagine this happening in classrooms full of excited and engaged adolescents!

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you will know this is exactly why I left the state department to be closer to schools, closer to the teaching and learning that will make a difference in the lives of students.

Curiosity, Moths, and Moving Beyond the Five Paragraph Essay

Tonight I should be working on final preparations for a workshop with English teachers tomorrow, but instead, I’m researching moths.   I can’t say I’ve ever had much interest in moths before, but I also have never before seen one like the one I saw today.  Today’s experience was even more sweet, given that I was with 35 middle and high school science teachers who regularly utilize literacy strategies to teach their content.

In between the sharing of strategies like word sort and concept ladders, someone from the facility came in the room to ask if there were any moth experts available.  Half a dozen science teachers rushed outside to see a moth.   My curiosity caught the best of me.  We called for a break and went outside to inspect this moth. 

Our best thoughts right now are that we saw a Pandora Sphinx Moth.  I tweeted a picture of the moth and received a reply from a friend and former colleague who reminded me “form matches function at every level.”  She, as she usually does, provided me more to consider in my musings, but I’ll have to get back to musing on moths later because right now I need to gather my wits for talks tomorrow about why we need to teach students to move beyond the five paragraph essay in English class.

Form does match function at every level.  

Narrative and Informational Texts & the Common Core

“There’s my nonfiction loving friend”— my friend announced to me not long ago when we ran into one another on the soccer field where our sons were playing.  Indeed, I enjoy reading nonfiction, as I’ve blogged about previously, but I love a good novel, short story or collection of poems, too.  One of my favorite aspects of the nonfiction book I just finished was the narrative embedded throughout.   While reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  by Rebecca Sloot, I experienced a biology refresher without having to read an informational textbook like text.  I’ll spare you my version of a summary or book review because the New York Times did a better job than I will, and I’d rather write about the topic of teaching narrative and informational text to K-12 students, especially given the dictates of the common core standards which call for greater emphasis on informational text.  

This demand has caused a wide range of feelings and reactions from educators across the United States.  Some embrace the idea; others are outraged.  Most teachers with whom I have spoken plan to do what needs to be done to meet the needs of their students.  In a PBS Newshour report from May 14, 2012, John Marrow stated befittingly “savvy teachers do what works best.”  The report included interviews with teachers and administrators implementing a variety of reading programs for elementary aged students, and it questioned whether the common core standards will pay off.

As you will likely have noticed in the Newshour report, I’m not alone in thinking we don’t actually have to give up narrative completely.   Savvy teachers will do what works best when teaching students to read, write, speak, and listen and to be intelligent citizens in a global society.  Let’s consider Thomas Newkirk’s argument “Narrative is the deep structure of all good writing.  All good writing.  We struggle with writers who dispense with narrative form and simply present information because we are given no frame for comprehension.”   Acting on this proposition, we need to help students analyze text when they read and teach them to employ similar structures when they write.

Others have also written about not giving up narrative completely and with good reason; we can learn about various topics by reading narrative.  Take for example the way I experienced a biology refresher when reading Rebecca Skloot’s book.  I guarantee I would not have cared as much about DNA, cells and chromosomes had no narrative context been provided for me.  Skloot drew me into the story by telling me about the life of an African American woman from poverty whose cells were taken from her without permission and then used in research allowing scientists and researchers to profit.

Consider this explanation of cells and DNA from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

“Everybody always talking about cells and DNA,”  Deborah said at one point, “but I don’t understand what’s DNA and what’s in her cells.”  “Ah!”  Christoph said, excited, “DNA is what’s inside the cell! Inside each nucleus, if we could zoom in closer, you’d see a piece of DNA that looked like this.”  He drew a long squiggly line. “There’s forty-six of those pieces of DNA in every human nucleus.  We call those chromosomes—those are the things that were colored bright in that picture I gave you.”

Told within the context of narrative the explanation makes sense and serves as a nice biology refresher for me.  Would this explanation work in a biology classroom?  What if a teacher paired this explanation with other print and non-print texts to help students comprehend?  By providing students opportunities to read and to write interesting and complex texts we prepare them for life and the experiences that await them.

Thomas Newkirk.  “How We Really Comprehend Nonfiction.” Educational Leadership.  March 2012.

Rebecca Skloot.  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  New York, Crown Publishers, 2010.

Resources:
http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/engaging-nonfiction-the-times-the-common-core-and-a-question-for-you/

http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/category/common-core/

For elementary: 

http://www.ucrl.utah.edu/pro-dev/instruction/lesson3.html

http://www.csun.edu/~bashforth/305_PDF/305_FinalProj/TeachingNarrativeStructureAwareness_RT_Oct2007.pdf

For secondary:

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2012/05/analyzing-text-structures

http://www.adlit.org/strategies/23336/

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/improve-student-writing-skills?fd=1